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Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

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Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#171

Post by bertil »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #66
tsunamifury wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your logic is giving private companies complete rights over your physical person once you enter their plane will (and does as shown by the incident) lead to abuse for profit. There was no security issue, there was no emergency, there was no legitimate reason to remove this person from the plane. The abuse and physical harm of a passenger was done entirely in the name of saving a few dollars by not se…

The thing is, on a plane the crew is king and you have to follow their orders. If they decide that you have to leave the plane, you must leave the plane. Now, their reasons might be questionable. You have every right to fight the airline once you are off the plane. But there is no room for this while on board. Basically, as soon as he started to refuse to follow the crew's orders, it was a lost case for him.

Not exactly: the crew’s first duty is to protect passengers’ safety. In that regard, they are allowed to compel passengers and can do things like confiscate alcohol for disinfection and demand that a surgeon operates a dying patient/passenger. They are allowed to flag a passenger as rowdy or suspicious. They are not allowed to demand that a passenger disembark for other reasons than security.

Harming a passenger when you had a peaceful solution available is the exact opposite of what they are meant to do.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#172

Post by protomyth »

true_religion wrote: post #116
protomyth wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the law, it seems very much like prioritizing employees over passengers is actually illegal.

I don't actually think so. Prioritising employees may very well be essential to the continued or optimal operation of your airline. For example, getting person A to a city so they can crew in place of a sick employee, where otherwise we would have a plane with no pilot.

> Prioritising employees may very well be essential to the continued or optimal operation of your airline

But that doesn't seem to be legal. It wasn't an oversold flight and the rule is "In the event of an oversold flight, every carrier shall ensure that the smallest practicable number of persons holding confirmed reserved space on that flight are denied boarding involuntarily."

The airline didn't do that because ensuring the "smallest practicable number of persons holding confirmed reserved space" would mean the non-flight employees get bumped not the passengers.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#173

Post by soVeryTired »

Natsu wrote: post #46
M_Grey wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That entire way of policing has been normalized and legalized over the decades now. For example, originally "Less Lethal" options were intended to be used in a situation an officer would otherwise have to use their firearm. Now, they're just used as compliance "come-alongs"; these kinds of things start in our prisons and then come to our streets. Now you have police tasering streakers just to stop them, or swabbing s…

Well, the only response police have to non-compliance has always been violence. It's always been against the law not to comply with their orders. And it seems obvious that they will choose the sort that's less risky to the officer (taser, pepper spray), because each and every one of them knows the stories of the officers who got hurt. So yeah, if the police tell you to do something, you should expect to do it. It's n…

The difference is in the rate of escalation. In the US, non-compliance can lead to violence really, really quickly.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#174

Post by pdelbarba »

dingaling wrote: post #5

This e-mail illustrates the complete imbalance of the "contract" of carriage between passenger and airline, which is compounded by the Federal Aviation Regulations that give the crew ultimate power even when there's no safety risk[0]. The CEO states that the flight was 'fully boarded' and then later that it was decided to 'deny boarding' to four passengers. So was it fully boarded or not? It doesn't really matter, th…

One has to be very careful challenging the final authority of the crew. In the times where this was not the case, you could just tell your pilots to be on time no matter what and end up with crashes due to flying into weather, running out of fuel, etc. At the end of the day, the PIC needs final authority since it's their ass on the line as well. As an aside, the flight deck crew don't really pay much attention to whats happening in the back and have to rely on the FAs to manage the passengers. If the FA complains about someone to the flight deck, the PIC will generally follow their recommendation without pause.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#175

Post by valuearb »

BlackFly wrote: post #76
trollied wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people appear to think that what they did wasn't legal. See: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/593329-usa-today-ua-forci...

That is a fantastic link. Summary of the points: CFR 250.2a covers overbooking but only applies before boarding. Since the United employees had no confirmed reserved seats on the aircraft, they cannot be given priority over a customer with a confirmed reserved seat. The passenger was already boarded, so they cannot rely on oversales rules to refuse service. Instead they need to rely on their Contract of Carriage whic…

"which does not allow them to eject customers for any reason whatsoever. The most circular thing they could eject him for was failure to follow the terms of the contract of carriage for refusing to disembark"

You should go back to law school. They can eject anyone at any time for any reason.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/757712/passengers-rejoic...

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/201...

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#176

Post by tyingq »

govg wrote: post #166
cm2187 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about the comfort of seating in a train. It's about not having to queue for 1h at security, being abused by TLA officers, queue again, getting checked, queue again, getting checked, etc. Flying today feels like going to jail.

If you have as much commercial pressure in trains as you do in flights, then I'm sure you will be asked to do the same sort of checks, and standing in queues. This happens because flights are an easy target (due to high costs, visibility and more favored view in the public eye). If we had someone attacking train lines because they carried a lot of people, you would have correspondingly sever safety regulations too.

I feel like a lot of the security for flights is basically theater now. 9/11 worked because the passengers believed they were being hijacked, and had a reasonable chance of surviving. Most of the procedure is chasing terrorist strategy that isn't going to be used. They've already switched tactics (laptop bombs, for example), and our current approach isn't helping much.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#177

Post by valuearb »

goatherders wrote: post #50

I love how they say he was advised that he was "denied boarding." Here's a tip: If I'm in a seat, you've already let me board. And if you planned poorly then that isn't my problem. Unlike any other industry of which I am aware, airlines are unbelievably skilled at making their problems their customers problems and then not apologizing for it.

10,000 flights a day, 365 days a year, sometimes the most improbable things happen.

And once you are in your seat, doesn't mean you can't be asked to leave.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/201...

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#178

Post by hedora »

soVeryTired wrote: post #161
hedora wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/plane/bus/g s/leave/sit in the back of/g

Please don't compare this to the civil rights movement. Police brutality is not a good thing, but the injustices that started that movement were orders of magnitude greater.

Have you been paying attention to how muslims (including US citizens) are being treated on planes and in airports?

What about the security apparatus that underpins the no fly list and is feeding this comment into your "is this a terrorist" machine learning profile?

What about the idea that corporations (like private prisons) sometimes have the right to completely ignore due process?

Please stop acting like everything is OK and this is not about civil rights.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#179

Post by devy »

cr1895 wrote: post #141
devy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reports I heard from interviews of some other passengers on that flight was that the United issues voucher in $50 denominations, or 16 $50 vouchers expires in a year and have lots of restrictions and fine prints. In other words, the offer was NOT worthy the face value and hassle of "re-accommodation".

https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights The airline may offer some alternative compensation (and of course one can accept it) but you have a right to a check. Of course the airline may try to hide this from you, or give you a hard time, but according to the Dept. of Transportation you're entitled to cash.

I doubt many passengers who got bumped are aware of their legal rights - I didn't until you linked it out.

Edit: I read it again, it read like cash compensation is not guaranteed though.

> Those travelers who don't get to fly are frequently entitled to denied boarding compensation in the form of a check or cash.

In other words, if you have a frequent flyer number or enrolled in customer loyalty program, airlines can argue that you "do indeed" fly frequently, can't they?

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#180

Post by [deleted] »

smitherfield wrote: post #79
MandieD wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One word: deregulation. It's been a very sharp double-edged sword: on the one hand, it gave us effective competitors like Southwest and jetBlue forcing the "legacy" carriers to compete on price and routes, enabling far more people to be able to fly. On the other, it caused the legacy carriers compete on price, not service (the only thing they could really compete on before deregulation). Personally, I fly Southwest a…

Deregulation is the reason the middle class can afford to fly at all. Pre-deregulation, a Boston-LA flight would be $500 in 1978 dollars.

[deleted]
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